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Terror video aimed at Rice

AMERICAN intelligence officials were yesterday scrutinising a new Al-Qaeda video whose release on Friday appeared to have been timed to undermine a visit to the Middle East by Condoleezza Rice, the American secretary of state. She arrived in Israel yesterday.

The video broadcast by the Al-Jazeera network featured the first public appearance since February of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the deputy of Osama Bin Laden. He dismissed American attempts to foster democratic reform in the region and called on Palestinian groups to end a ceasefire with Israel.

Past Zawahiri broadcasts have been followed by terrorist attacks. In this video he appeared with a gun pointing upward, which one American specialist interpreted as a signal to al-Qaeda followers to “target the leaders of democracy movements in the Middle East”.

“He’s saying (democracy) is not the way to go,” said Marc Ginsberg, a former American ambassador to Morocco. “He’s saying only the imposition of